In the production of certain products, such as tortillas, tortilla chips, "tacos" shells, and the like, from grains such as corn, it is known that the basic grain material must be partially cooked before it is formed into the end product, so as to cause it to be partially gelatinized, reduced in particle size, and sufficiently nixtamalized. By "nixtamalized" is meant breaking the corn grain hull down toward a gelatinized state by cooking in lime-water. In the past, this has been done by processes where the grain is cooked in a lime-water solution, in a batch process such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,584,893, or in a continuous process such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,194,664, or in a semi-continuous process such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,704,557, and subsequently ground and dried to produce flour from which such corn products may be made.
It is desired to produce such flour-like material so that the home owner, small merchant, or other user may make up relatively smaller quantities of desired end products. Further, it is desired to produce such flour-like material by a continuous, rather than a batch process, in the interests of realizing production efficiencies and cost savings, as well as economies of space. In addition, it is desired to produce a higher quality product than has been possible in the past.
Accordingly, an object of this invention is to produce material for the production of end products from grains such as corn.
Another object is to achieve this objective in the form of a flour-like material.
Yet another objective is to achieve these objectives utilizing a continuous process.
Still another objective is to attain these objectives in a way which is efficient and comparatively less expensive.
Another objective is to achieve these objectives and to produce flour-like products which are relatively uniform and homogeneous in their physical properties.